The Four Life Changing Stages of a Real Estate Investor

The Four Life Changing Stages Of A Real Estate InvestorTue 08/18/09 09:24:20 pm by Jason Hanson

There are four stages to a real estate investors career. If you make it to stage four, youll be rewarded with a life spent on your own terms, where you control your own destiny.

Stage one begins at 3:00 am one morning. Youre channel surfing and you stop on an infomercial of Carleton Sheets sitting on the beaches of Hawaii. Because theres nothing else on TV at that time, you sit through the 30 minute infomercial. The next morning you wake up and you cant get real estate investing out of your mind. Youre sick of your job and have wanted to get out of the rat race for a while now. You know that many fortunes have been made in real estate and you decide that youre going to begin on the path to a better lifestyle.

You dont have the foggiest idea in the world how to invest in real estate so you go to the bookstore and read a few real estate books. After two or three books you think youre pretty much an expert. Maybe you try to buy a house through a Realtor, or maybe you put out some signs and find a motivated seller that way.

Stage one is a very dangerous stage. This is where a lot of people get taken advantage of by con artists, because you dont know what you dont know. You also might do a terrible deal and lose thousands of dollars (I did a horrible deal in this stage that cost me $20,000). If you survive stage one, then you move on to stage two. Unfortunately, 95% of people quit at stage one (this is why less than 5% of people in this country are millionaires).

In stage two, you quickly realize that you need help. You realize you need to get a mentor and purchase some quality courses and read this magazine to give you a proper education. You also attend a few seminars and attend your local real estate investment meetings. You set up your LLC, get business cards, set up a website, get a dedicated phone number and make sure your infrastructure is in place.

You also learn the importance of marketing. You create a marketing plan and start putting up your bandit signs, mailing your postcards and letters and networking every chance you get. Through the help of your mentor and your education, you get your first deal and make your first profit in this business (mine was a check for $3,500). The feeling you get in stage two is amazing. You finally believe in yourself and in this business. You know that the business works and your self-confidence explodes. In stage two you close 1-4 deals.

In stage three you continue to invest heavily in your education. You get another mentor, buy more educational products and attend more seminars. You also learn multiple investing techniques. If you started out as a wholesaler, you learn how to do subject-to and lease options. Its very important to learn multiple techniques in this stage. If you arent able to create several solutions every time you evaluate a property, you wont las...

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